Welcome Home, Chickens

My credit union recently switched Internet banking providers from Galaxy Plus Credit Union Systems to Digital Insight. Sure, the Galaxy Plus system wasn't the flashiest or most intuitive system on the planet, but it worked fine.

The switch-over occurred on the last weekend of the month, when I usually pay bills. "No problem," I thought. "I'll take care of it on Monday."

Monday. I logged in, and the system asked me to reset my password. I entered a sufficiently complex password, as the security experts recommend, and the system accepted it. But what the system really wanted was an eight-character password - and I was over the limit. So when I attempted to log in again, I was shut out and had to e-mail customer service for a reset.

Tuesday. With my reset password, I went to make a bill payment. The system informed me that bill payment functionality currently was being established and that it would take about three days to go through. I hope my creditors will accept that message as an excuse.

Wednesday. The bill payment system let me in, but I had to reenter all of my billers' addresses. In doing so, I was prompted to look up the payees in an electronic payments database, where I mostly found close but inexact matches that made me think that my payments were going to end up in the wrong state. All but one of my payees will receive paper checks within five days instead of electronic transfers within three days.

Finally, none of my transaction history was transferred to the new system. Sure, I could have downloaded all of them as a Microsoft Money or a Quicken file prior to the switch-over, but I didn't think of doing so, nor did I receive a friendly reminder to that effect.

I suppose that's the lesson I get from not banking with my own audience, since most BS&T subscribers are bankers. I wasn't eating my own dog food, the chickens have come home to roost, and the metaphorical dogs and chickens are breeding with impunity.